Professor Evonne Miller
Faculty of Creative Industries, Education & Social Justice,
School of Design
Biography
Professor of Design Psychology Evonne Miller is Director of the QUT Design Lab, where our mission and vision is to reimagine and redesign the future. We create impactful change, applying our creative mindsets to three core domains: (1) industry and advanced manufacturing; (2) health; and (3) the built environment.Evonne’s own research centres on design for health, where she is a leading voice on the value of arts and design-led innovation in healthcare transformation. She is co-Director of HEAL - the Healthcare Excellence AcceLerator, a bridge between the QUT design and innovation community and Queensland Health, which is accelerating healthcare improvement efforts across the state by integrating the positive creative energy and mindsets of ‘design thinking, design doing and design visioning ’ into healthcare.
Evonne has over $4M in competitive research grants, 100+ academic publications in ageing, health, arts and design innovation, and is a Fellow of the Australian Association of Gerontology. She brings a collaborative, pragmatic, and interdisciplinary approach to problem solving, and is an experienced and dynamic presenter, project manager, and workshop facilitator, able to engage, influence and inspire. Evonne has led projects and workshops on pathways to virtual, connected and integrated care, planning for the pandemic, reducing procedural pain, informal caregiving, redesigning aged care and palliative care, as well as participatory research methods of Photovoice and Poetic Inquiry - with her work driving change across all levels of organisations.
Evonne has authored and edited several books, including:
- “Creating Great Places: Evidence-based urban design for health and wellbeing (Routledge, 2020; with A/Prof Deb Cushing) which outlines how designers can create great places that are inclusive, sustainable, and salutogenic (health-promoting);
- “Creative Arts-Based Research in Aged Care: Photovoice, Photography and Poetry in Action” (Routledge, 2021), exploring entering, living, and dying in aged care;
- “How to be a Design Academic: From learning to leading” (CRC Press, 2021, Edited with Prof Thea Blackler).
Evonne is currently working on her fourth book, with A/Prof Deb Cushing, “Redesigning the Unremarkable” on the value of purposefully and creatively redesigning the unremarkable features and elements of our urban environment (from stairwells to streets, to shopping centres and hospitals) with the global priorities of sustainable, salutogenic (health promoting), playful, and inclusive design in mind.
Personal details
Positions
- Director, QUT Design Lab
Faculty of Creative Industries, Education & Social Justice,
School of Design - Professor
Faculty of Creative Industries, Education & Social Justice,
School of Design
Keywords
Population Ageing, Social sustainability, Co-design, Design thinking, Body image and the Media, Aged Care, Technology in healthcare
Discipline
Design Practice and Management, Psychology, Sociology
Field of Research code, Australian and New Zealand Standard Research Classification (ANZSRC), 2008
Qualifications
- PhD (University of Otago)
- Bachelor of Arts (Psychology) (University of Otago)
- Bachelor of Commerce (Marketing Management) (University of Otago)
Professional memberships and associations
Evonne is a Fellow (2012) and Distinguished Member (2009) of the Australian Association of Gerontology (AAG), Australia’s largest multidisciplinary professional association of people working in the diverse fields of ageing. She was co-conference chair of the AAG’s National Conference in 2012 (Ageing: Challenging the Boundaries), and other leadership roles, including: National Honorary Secretary (06-09), President of the Queensland division (08-11), and co-scientific program chair of the 2021 conference.
Teaching
Evonne is a Senior Fellow of the Higher Education Academy. Her teaching has focused on research methods, sustainability, and social-cultural issues for design, at both the undergraduate and postgraduate level, as well as delivering workshops on research supervision, academic writing, design thinking / co-design, and participatory arts-based research methods (photovoice and research poetry). Units she has coordinated, lectured and tutored in include:
- First year – ‘Introducing Sustainability’ (Faculty-wide unit)
- Second year – ‘Socio-Cultural Studies’ (Industrial design unit)
- Fourth year – ‘Design & Research’ (School-wide unit)
- Fourth year – ‘Architectural Research ’ (Architecture unit)
- Fourth year – ‘Survey Methods’ (Humanities & Human Services unit)
Experience
Evonne’s research focuses on how to design environments – built, technical, socio-cultural and natural – that better engage and support all users, especially older people in residential aged care. She is a passionate advocate for design and creative arts-based participatory research methods.
Evonne has been awarded over $4 Million in competitive research grant funding, including a current $1.15M National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC) Ideas Grant (2020-2025) exploring how to develop an intergenerational model of senior living/aged care on high school campuses and an Australian Research Council (ARC) Discovery grant (2021-2023) using creative-arts methods (poetic inquiry, participatory photography, citizen storytelling, interactive art) to amplify the voices of aged care residents and engage policy makers, providers, and the public in a reflexive, inclusive conversation about the past, present and future of aged care. Evonne is also currently working with the QLD Office for Prisoner Health and Wellbeing to redesign how prisoners access medical care.
She is the QUT led of HEAL - the Healthcare Excellence AcceLerator, a collaboration hub with the Healthcare Improvement Unit at Clinical Excellence Queensland designed to act as a bridge between the QUT design and innovation community and Queensland Health, accelerating healthcare improvement efforts across the state. HEAL connects healthcare policymakers, clinicians, and administrators across Queensland with designers, who have worked together using design approaches to transform thinking, spaces, places, processes and products, and positively transform healthcare.
The impact of the HEAL project was recognised in the prestigious 2021 Good Design Australia (https://good-design.org/projects/re-designing-healthcare-the-value-of-a-design-led-approach/awards, winning twice: in the social impact and service design categories, for demonstrating tangible benefits of design thinking in positively transforming healthcare. The HEAL team also won the 2021 QUT Vice-Chancellor's Awards for Excellence (VCAE) in the category of Partnership and Engagement Excellence, acknowledging the collaborative real-world research impact of the project.
Selected publications
- Dendle K, Miller E, Buys E, Vine D, (2022) 'Kookaburras, kangaroos, and my frilly necked lizard': The value of wildlife, nature, and companion animals for older community-dwelling Australians, Australasian Journal on Ageing, 41 (2), pp. 335-339.
- Miller E, (2021) Creative Arts-Based Research in Aged Care: Photovoice, Photography and Poetry in Action, Routledge.
- Blackler A, Miller E, (2021) How to be a Design Academic: From Learning to Leading, CRC Press.
- Cushing D, Miller E, (2020) Creating Great Places: Evidence-based Urban Design for Health and Wellbeing, Routledge.
- Wright N, Miller E, Dawes L, Wrigley C, (2020) Beyond 'chalk and talk': educator perspectives on design immersion programs for rural and regional schools, International Journal of Technology and Design Education, 30 (1).
- Arlinkasari F, Cushing D, Miller E, (2020) Play, work, and rest: The developmental affordances of designated child-friendly public spaces in Jakarta, Indonesia, Children, Youth and Environments, 30 (2), pp. 119-146.
- Miller E, Burton L, (2020) Redesigning aged care with a biophilic lens: A call to action, Cities & Health.
- Miller E, Devlin N, Buys L, Donoghue G, (2020) The happiness initiative: Changing organizational culture to make 'brilliance' mainstream in aged care, Journal of Management and Organization, 26 (3), pp. 296-308.
- Miller E, Polson D, (2019) Apps, avatars, and robots: The future of mental healthcare, Issues in Mental Health Nursing, 40 (3), pp. 208-214.
- Miller E, Buys L, Donoghue G, (2019) Photovoice in aged care: What do residents value?, Australasian Journal on Ageing, 38 (3).
QUT ePrints
For more publications by Evonne, explore their research in QUT ePrints (our digital repository).
Awards
- Type
- Curatorial role (head curator, membership of curatorial board) of a prestigious event
- Reference year
- 2021
- Details
- Initiated and curated the inaugural interdisciplinary exhibition at the 54th Australian Association of Gerontology (AAG) 2021 annual conference. Entitled "Art, Ageing & Innovation", the exhibition enriches, challenges, inspires and provokes reflection on ageing - inviting us to pause and look at the familiar in a new way. The exhibition features over 20 artists and creative works about ageing including paintings, photographs, research poetry, installations, interactive VR, digital stories, and short films on topics as diverse as improving dementia awareness in culturally and linguistically diverse communities, to "talking trans ageing", a series of videos designed to help trans and gender diverse people start a conversation about their needs and safety in residential aged care.
- Type
- Appointment to Prestigious Positions
- Reference year
- 2021
- Details
- Invited representative and author on a 2021 internal policy report for Queensland Health, ¿Getting us back up and running¿, outlining the health, social policy and economic implications of various scenarios and options on COVID-19 decision-making, balanced relative to the proportional health and future economic risks.
- Type
- Committee Role/Editor or Chair of an Academic Conference
- Reference year
- 2021
- Details
- Co-Scientific Committee Chair of the 54th Australian Association of Gerontology (AAG) 2021 annual conference, entitled "Innovation in Ageing for the Future" which invites us all to question and redefine how we think and work to open up new ways of approaching the challenges and possibilities of an ageing world.
- Type
- Appointment to State/National/International Reference Group or Government Committees
- Reference year
- 2021
- Details
- Appointed as Arts Queensland peer assessor, reflecting my specialist knowledge relevant to specific art forms and arts and cultural contexts. The role provides independent reviews, moderation and recommendations on applications to Arts Queensland's investment program.
- Type
- Keynote Speaker/Expert Panel Member/Invited Speaker for a Conference
- Reference year
- 2021
- Details
- Invited keynote speaker at 2021 Audiology Australia annual conference, "Audiology at the Cutting Edge: Connections for a Reimagined Future". My opening plenary "Design thinking as a strategy for innovation in audiology", reflected on the challenges and opportunities of experimenting with a design-led approach in preparing for the future.
- Type
- Keynote Speaker/Expert Panel Member/Invited Speaker for a Conference
- Reference year
- 2018
- Details
- Invited speaker at the "Diversity in Disaster: Communities and emergency management building resilience" Conference in Melbourne, Australia. (17-18 April 2018). This conference focussed on the experience of marginalised groups in disasters, with my presentation on older Queenslanders experience of the Brisbane floods - using the creative-arts method of poetic inquiry to trigger deep empathy, understanding and insight.
- Type
- Appointment to Prestigious Positions
- Reference year
- 2012
- Details
- In 2012, Evonne was made a Fellow of the Australian Association of Gerontology (AAG), for contributions to Gerontology (the study of ageing). Evonne has served as AAG National Hon. Secretary (06-09) and AAG Queensland president (08-11), and was co-chair of the 2012 AAG annual conference "Challenging the Boundaries" in Brisbane where ~500 attendees shared and debated best innovative practice, research and policy in ageing.
Research projects
- Title
- Amplifying Voices from the Royal Commission into Aged Care
- Primary fund type
- CAT 1 - Australian Competitive Grant
- Project ID
- DP210100589
- Start year
- 2021
- Keywords
- Title
- An Inter-Generational Learning and Living Campus: A New Model for Healthy Senior Living and Integrated School Communities Across Urban and Regional Australia
- Primary fund type
- CAT 1 - Australian Competitive Grant
- Project ID
- 1187656
- Start year
- 2020
- Keywords
- Aged Care; Aged Health; Services Research; Health Care Delivery; Health Care Worker Education
- Title
- Facilitating Active Ageing in Residential Aged Care: Strategies, Opportunities and Future Directions
- Primary fund type
- CAT 1 - Australian Competitive Grant
- Project ID
- LP130100036
- Start year
- 2013
- Keywords
- Acitve Ageing; Population Ageing; Residential Aged Care
- Title
- The Neglected Dimension Of Community Liveability: Impact On Social Connectedness And Active Ageing
- Primary fund type
- CAT 1 - Australian Competitive Grant
- Project ID
- LP0883447
- Start year
- 2009
- Keywords
- Community Liveability; Social Engagement; Community Well Being; Social Isolation; Population Ageing
- Title
- Growing Sustainable Regions: Developing a Rural Statistical Sustainability Framework
- Primary fund type
- CAT 1 - Australian Competitive Grant
- Project ID
- LP0776795
- Start year
- 2008
- Keywords
- Sustainable Regions; Rural Sustainability; Regional Growth; Spatial Decision Support Systems; Economic Development; Decision Making
Supervision
Current supervisions
- Doing Dementia Friendly Communities Locally: Tensions in Committee Practices and Micro Processes
PhD, Associate Supervisor
Other supervisors: Dr Lisa Stafford, Dr Judith Burton - orkwear wellbeing: design processes for the creation of Industry 4.0 workwear
MPhil, Associate Supervisor
Other supervisors: Associate Professor Marianella Chamorro-Koc, Ms Natalie Haskell - The female furniture designer: acknowledging the past to inspire the future
MPhil, Associate Supervisor
Other supervisors: Dr Natalie Wright, Dr Penny Wild
Completed supervisions (Doctorate)
- The 'Home' / 'Homelessness' Continuum in Residential Aged Care (2019)
- Woven Narratives: Creative Participatory Art in Residential Aged Care (2019)
- Future challenges for older adults residing in ageing coastal hamlets on Queensland's cyclone-prone coastline (2016)
- Identifying Landscape Meanings: Images and Interactions at Gas Works Park (2016)
- What doesn't kill us - the experience of older adults evacuated during the 2011 and 2013 Brisbane floods (2016)
- Where are the women? Women Industrial Designers From University to workplace (2016)
- Exploring the Relationship Between Grandparents and Their Grandchild who has a Disability (2011)
Completed supervisions (Masters by Research)
- Operationalising Community Disaster Resilience: The Role of Place-Based Community Organisations (2020)
- Investigating employees' understanding and application of design thinking for innovation in a large organisation (2018)
- Social Implications of Radical Technology Adoption within the Livestock Industry (2011)